


Kiss Me Goodbye

by Warp5Complex_Archivist



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-04
Updated: 2006-03-03
Packaged: 2018-08-15 22:46:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8075845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Warp5Complex_Archivist/pseuds/Warp5Complex_Archivist
Summary: Trip has a request for Hoshi. (02/24/2004)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Kylie Lee, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Warp 5 Complex](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Warp_5_Complex), the software of which ceased to be maintained and created a security hazard. To make future maintenance and archive growth easier, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but I may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Warp 5 Complex collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/Warp5Complex).

  
Author's notes: This is what I came up with in response to the Linguistics Database Challenge In A Can: Tuckerâ€”Tearâ€”Blood.  


* * *

She should have refused to go when T'Pol informed them that the caves would block all communication. The away team had gone anyway, four of them in a shuttlepod to explore the unique caves on this uninhabited planet. She and Commander Tucker had gone into one set of caves, and T'Pol had gone into another with Captain Archer. They were supposed to rendevous at the shuttlepod in an hour and five minutes, but Hoshi knew that she and Trip wouldn't make it.

How it happened, she wasn't exactly sure. He had been looking at one side of the tunnel, and she at the other, so her back had been turned. Suddenly a tremendous roar filled her ears, and when she turned, he was pinned under rocks. She had been able to clear most of them away, but it was too late; the damage had already been done.

Trip was stilled pinned down by a gigantic rock on his knees that all Hoshi's efforts hadn't been able to budge. She was trying to push it off from the side when he regained consciousness.

"Ow," he had murmerred weakly.

"Trip! I'm so sorry if I hurt you trying to get this off your legs..."

"I meant my head hurts. Hoshi, I can't feel my legs."

"I have to get this off so we can get back to the shuttlepod and get you to Sickbay," she said, not knowing how to respond to what Trip had said. So far she'd been working on that last rock for ten minutes and all she'd managed was a tear in his uniform.

"I don't think I'm gonna make it back to the shuttle." His head throbbed, he couldn't feel anything below his waist, and when he turned his head, with excruciating effort, he saw blood all around him.

"You can't give up, Trip."

"Hoshi...I think I'm dyin'."

"Trip, no. Don't say that."

He grimaced as a wave of pain came over him. "Tell Jon it's been an honor serving under him, and to let Porthos have some cheese once in a while."

Tears started running down Hoshi's face. "It isn't your fault, Hoshi."

He was slipping away now, and she knew it as well as he did. His voice grew fainter, and the blood around him seemed to be all the blood from every vein in his body.

"Trip, I..."

"Aren't you gonna kiss me goodbye?"

That shocked her, but she did. Leaning in, she gave him a slow, loving kiss. Then he was gone, and she was all alone, deep inside alien caves.


	2. Chapter 2

When the second away team had failed to return to the shuttlepod, Captain Archer and T'Pol had gone searching for them. Now, finally, T'Pol announced that she was reading one human biosign twelve meters ahead.

"Only one?"

She double-checked her tricorder, not because she doubted herself but because it would placate the captain. "Yes."

"Trip! Hoshi!" he yelled out. T'Pol's sensitive ears were offended at his sudden loud outburst, but she made no outward sign.

Archer ran the last eleven meters and found Hoshi and Trip, neither of them moving. They were in a pool of blood. Coming up from behind, T'Pol consulted her tricorder.

"Ensign Sato appears to be healthy. I regret to inform you that I cannot say the same for Commander Tucker. He is dead."

"Trip, come on, don't joke about this."

"Captain, this is not a joke. The commander has been dead for 2.2 hours."

He found himself involuntarily taking a step away. "No."

"Perhaps Ensign Sato can tell us the circumstances of his death. I believe she is in what humans refer to as 'shock.'" Loudly, she called out, "Ensign."

Hoshi turned to look at her. "He's gone T'Pol, he's really gone."

"I am aware of that, Ensign. Can you tell us the circumstances of his death?"

Hoshi saw Captain Archer in the background. "I tried to save him, sir. I thought that if we could only get out of the caves, then he'd survive. But I couldn't get that last rock off of him."

T'Pol had again consulted her tricorder and turned to report to Captain Archer. "I believe that an avalanche caused Commander Tucker's death. He sustained severe internal injuries. Even if Ensign Sato had been able to return him to the ship, it is unlikely that Dr. Phlox would have been able to save him."

Together, she and the captain were able to lift the final rock that had pinned Trip down. "Hoshi, you couldn't have saved him." Archer was fighting off shock of his own. He wanted to cry, but he couldn't do that now. Now he had to be Captain Archer, strong for the sake of his crew. Later, alone in his quarters, he could just be Jon, a man whose best friend had just died. His captain's quarters would seem cavernous without the prospect of Trip's jokes never filling them again.

"He told me to tell you that it's been an honor serving with you, Captain. And to," Hoshi paused to choke back a sob, "to let Porthos have cheese sometimes."

Porthos would miss "Uncle Trip," he realized. Actually, Archer had long had suspicions that Trip was sneaking Porthos cheese. It was hard to resist those sad eyes, he knew. But that didn't matter now. His best friend was dead.

Wordlessly, T'Pol picked up the engineer's body. Hoshi leaned on Captain Archer, not yet out of shock, and they moved towards the exit.

"He wasn't scared, Captain," Hoshi said after a few moments of silence. "I can't believe he's really gone. What will we do without him?"

"He wouldn't want us to dwell on his death." He thought for a moment about how much the two of them had shared. "Damn, I'm going to miss him."

"He was such a great person. He cared about everyone, and he always knew how to make you smile." Hoshi didn't bother trying to hold back this sob; she let it come, and in the caves it echoed. Jon had never heard anything so lonely and forlorn, and he felt the same way. How could he even find words to express how he felt? His best friend was dead. Words feel far short of describing his anguish.

Feeling that she should indicate her own regret at the Commander's death, T'Pol said, "Despite his flaws, Commander Tucker was a talented engineer." After a moment, she added, "And a unique individual." That was as close as she would come to indicating sorrow, and her companions knew it. What they did not know was her plan to eat a slice of pecan pie, alone in her quarters before meditation, in memory of him.

It was getting lighter; they were nearing the opening. Soon the three of them would step into the sunlight that Trip would never see again. It was alien sunlight, but it was warm and inviting all the same. Trip would've liked a patch of trees that Archer saw in the distance. If they had been on shore leave, he might have tried to climb one like a boy. Did he see them on the way in, or was that one more thing his best friend would never see?

Before they got into the shuttlepod that would carry them away from the world where Trip had drawn his last breath, Archer turned to Hoshi. "What were his last words?"

The question elicited a waterfall of tears from his linguistics officer. "He asked me if I was going to kiss him goodbye," she said softly, and then more tears poured down her face.

He didn't ask if she had. That was between Hoshi and Trip.

She stood there, looking as if she might break, and feeling as though breaking was imminent. Part of her heart would always remain in those alien caves. After she kissed him, he had died, as if the kiss was the last thing he wanted.

When she kissed him, she realized that she loved him. Then he died, and it was too late. Too late for a relationship, too late for a future together. Too late to tell him how she felt.

Hoshi looked at her captain, and saw that he was remembering his friend. They'd know each other for many years; his grief would be different.

There would be a memorial service and a burial in space. As T'Pol looked at the two humans grieving over the loss of another, the emotions that she worked so hard to repress surfaced for just a moment. And in that moment, she thought that there was no more poignant memorial than the heart-wrenching grief they showed here. For half a second, T'Pol wished that she could join the humans beside her. The moment passed, and her emotions were once again tightly under control.

The tears were better than a monument a hundred feet high, because he was loved. Turning towards the caves, T'Pol, Hoshi, and Jonathan Archer all gave their own farewell. His body was with them, but his spirit, they thought, was closer in the caves.

"May your _katra_ find peace, Charles Tucker."

"Trip, it was we who were honored to serve with you. We're all better for knowing you. You brought out the best of me. I'll try to keep it out. And I'll give Porthos cheese once in a while."

"I shouldn't have waited until it was goodbye."


End file.
